The Nature of Things: Planners, Homeowners Diverge on Development

Sunday

Jun 23, 2013 at 12:07 AM

Tuesday's contentious hearing over whether a convenience store should be allowed on a state highway at the entrance to a large residential subdivision between Lakeland and Mulberry highlights one of the ongoing conflicts between urban planners and homeowner groups.

By TOM PALMERTHE LEDGER

Tuesday's contentious hearing over whether a convenience store should be allowed on a state highway at the entrance to a large residential subdivision between Lakeland and Mulberry highlights one of the ongoing conflicts between urban planners and homeowner groups.For planners, the most undesirable type of development pattern is isolated residential development with no connection to stores, offices, restaurants and other commercial sites. That forces people to get into their cars and drive there, further congesting highways.A more desirable approach, the planners insist, is to plan developments with commercial included so that people can walk or ride their bicycles or drive without having to enter nearby highways to take care of many of their needs.County and city planners have changed the growth map to make way for something called "transit-oriented development," which allows denser residential and commercial development and redevelopment along highways to promote the use of transit.This potentially transformes future development patterns in large sections of Polk County, but few average citizens paid attention when the map changed.Related to that are plans to re-engineer some city streets to restrict automobile traffic flow. The thinking behind this is that this will make these corridors more pedestrian friendly or bicycle friendly. Planners have presented plans at public workshops to do more, such as use the designs to promote transit use.The concepts are inviting and intriguing, but when it comes to specific projects, conflicts arise, as last week's three-hour public hearing illustrated.Some of the conflicts are psychological or maybe ideological.I've been covering planning and zoning disputes for nearly 40 years.The one recurring theme in many of them is that homeowners are opposed to anything that's different from what's already around them.Planners may like heterogenous development plans, but homeowner groups want uniformity.People in large homes don't want people in little homes next door. None of the homeowners want to be next to apartments. I covered one case where people living in mobiles homes were leery of a planned RV development next door.When the proposal involves commercial development, even if it means homeowners will no longer have to drive miles to buy groceries, gas or other daily provisions, the protests really crank up.There will be noise. There will be light. There will be traffic. There will be strangers driving by my neighborhood.It doesn't even have to be commercial development.I can think of three instances in which plans to build new county parks have provoked the same kind of critical reaction.So what's the solution?County officials and developers often hold public meetings with people from the neighborhood to work out objections to potentially controversial projects.The results vary.One other approach that I haven't seen done much locally is to bring up these types of bread-and-butter issues when planners hold public workshops to figure out where growth plans and development regulations need to be updated.Most of those discussions, which are often guided by planners, focus on general, big picture, macro issues such as whether there should be adequate roads and schools, drinking water or parks.Maybe there ought to meetings to let the public give the planners a report card on how the stuff they've proposed or allowed to happen is working out.If planners can attract a good cross-section of the public and not just a few people with personal axes to grind, it might produce a useful discussion and bridge some the gaps between the public and the planners.

[ Tom Palmer can be reached at tom.palmer@theledger.com or 863-802-7535. Read more views on the environment at http://environment.blogs.theledger.com and more views on county government at http://county.blogs.theledger.com/. Follow on Twitter @LedgerTom. ]